Tag Archives: Sen. Cruz

Some may look at the Tea Party folks as “wacko birds” (Sen. John McCain’s words). They may see them at the far right of the Republican Party, but let’s look a little closer at their lineage and particularly their paternity.

The spiritual father of the Tea Party was probably Sen. Strom Thurmond, the presidential candidate of the Dixiecrats in 1948. This was a conservative branch of Southern Democrats who could not abide integration, were therefore passionately anti-civil rights and for state’s rights. They attempted to legally justify ignoring federal law with the doctrines of “interposition” and “nullification.” Both were legal theories that would allow individual states, or states acting together, to declare a federal law unconstitutional. Our courts have, at every level, ruled that these are invalid theories. Yet they remain spoken desires. Texas Gov. Perry, as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, threatened secession. Many of his persuasion want the ability to opt out of federal mandates and laws. The Affordable Health Care Act is a prime example.

The “Solid South,” that once belonged to the Democrats, began, with the Dixiecrat rebellion, to melt away. After Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” the Solid South became the Reliably Republican South. It’s been observed by some pundits (I’m using the passive voice here to convey their opinion without endorsing it) that the Tea Party is strongest in the states of the old Confederacy and is animated, if not by racial animus, by a philosophy that delegitimizes the Federal Government. It’s disproportionately white and believes that their government and their country has been stolen from them. In my view it hasn’t been stolen, but it is changing and that is threatening.

Demographically the members of the Tea Party are not rural uneducated rabble. Rebels yes. Their leader, Sen. Cruz, also of Texas, may be ethnically Cuban by way of Canadian birth, he may be a graduate of Harvard and Princeton but nonetheless He’s a stereotypic southern “good old boy.” He’s in the populist mold of Huey Long and plays, whether sincerely or cynically, on the grievances of folks who feel their privileged place slipping away.